The Sound of Science: Simon & Garfunkel (feat. Darwin)

[via WEIT]

Dana Carvey does Darwin

Dana Carvey is "DARWIN" - watch more at FunnyOrDie.com

[Hat tip to Tim for the link]

Why Darwin Still Matters

Here's a thought provoking talk on Why Darwin Still Matters, given by Warren Allmon, director of the Paleontological Research Institute & Museum of the Earth and professor at Cornell University.

[Source]

Creation "Museum" Part 5: Natural Selection vs. Evolution

~ Happy Darwin Day! ~

In honor of Chuck's 201st birthday (and the recent fuss over natural selection) I thought it appropriate to share some photos from a "Natural Selection is not Evolution" display from the Creation "Museum" in Kentucky.  During my visit in 2009, I managed to take photos of pretty much the whole display (which is a laughably transparent attempt to misrepresent the basic ideas of evolution and natural selection to promote AiG's particular brand of religious belief), which you can see below. This post is verbose, so feel free to just browse through the pictures (click on the images for a closer look).

The display is built on the usual creationist nonsense: e.g. that natural selection can't introduce new "information" (at least in the bizarre sense of the word used by many creationists), "mutations = loss of information", and lots of the usual equivocation with words like "kind." Like so many other displays in the "museum", it consists of a dash of selected scientific facts mixed with heaping piles of biblical literalisms and twisted logic.  Not surprisingly, this is a great recipe for generating some pretty dumb sounding statements like:

... speciation has never resulted in one kind of organism evolving into another kind, such as a reptile evolving into a bird.

and one of my favorite concluding remarks of all time:

Natural selection cannot (despite the common perception) be the mechanism for molecules-to-man evolution since it does not have the ability to create new genetic information (mutations cannot do this either).

The setup for their inevitable "we're right, science is wrong" punchline starts with the sign hanging from the ceiling in the display room.     

If you're wondering why they chose that title, the display goes on to imply the theory of biological evolution must be wrong because natural selection and evolution aren't the same thing... err, what?  Yes, evolution is not the same thing as natural selection, just like your car isn't the same thing as your steering wheel or that the rules of algebra aren't the same thing as all of mathematics.  None of this, of course, has any bearing on mathematics, your car, or the biological theory of evolution.

Now, in a real museum (remember, the Creation "Museum" is officially a ministry, not a science museum!) one would expect a display with a sign like this to clear up the basic definitions of and distinctions between these two concepts.  Presumably drafted with ulterior motives in mind (that or it was just really poorly done?), the first sign hints at a definition:

Sounds like a reasonable distinction between evolution and natural selection, right?  Well, not really... give it another read after you consider the following two points.

First, it's hard to deny - even for creationists - that natural selection happens. To accommodate this fact, a common approach seems to be to drive a wedge between microevolution and macroevolution.  Then, simply scoff at the notion of anything being "millions of years" old and blindly claim all the evidence supports microevolution but not macroevolution. Having done that, natural selection is no longer a problem.

Second, a big assertion in the "museum" is that creationist pseudoscientists and real scientists are all working with the same facts... that they just have different world views that influence their interpretation of those facts, and that these "competing world views" lead to the discord between the claims of real science and creationist pseudoscience.  This, of course, is complete BS.  You simply can't put science and religion on a level playing field.  By definition, creationists start with a core religious belief they assume to be true, then work to dismiss or rationalize away any evidence to the contrary. Real science works quite differently.

So what do they say about evolution and natural selection? First [bold emphasis is mine]...

Natural selection is the name Charles Darwin gave to an observable process, which results in small changes in the plant and animal world, such as fur color or plant height.

Here and in the next sentence, they still aren't giving any real definitions. Instead, they frame the conceptual relationship between evolution and natural selection as belief, then follow up with a bona fide (though quite unrelated) quote from legitimate scientists, just for a little credibility:

A common perception popularized by many scientists is that natural selection is a primary mechanism for evolution.  According to the National Academy of Sciences, "Natural selection... can have radically different evolutionary effects over different time scales."

If you feel like this sign is saying a lot between the lines, or if your BS detector is going off, you're on the right track!

Continuing with this sign, they again leave the reader free to associate scientific knowledge with personal belief. They give a nod to Darwin for getting the ball rolling, drop the phrase "millions of years" which I presume they repeatedly mention just to make other young-earth creationists snicker? They finish up the sign by priming the reader for more on this non-existent conflict between evolution and natural selection.

Darwin believed that given enough time (millions of years) natural selection could lead to large changes (such as a dinosaur evolving into a bird) and was the underlying mechanism of unobservable molecules-to-man evolution.  However, natural selection and evolution are different concepts, though today many mistakenly interchange the two.

After that primer, they take a stab at defining natural selection and evolution using factually reasonable but still disingenuous definitions of the two concepts:

Notice they leave the reader free to view these as lay terms, not specific scientific concepts:

Evolution - as commonly defined today - is the idea that all life on earth has come about through descent with modification from a single-celled common ancestor. We refer to this as molecule-to-man evolution. Inherent in this process is the requirement for origination of new genetic information as organisms evolve from simple to complex.

Here they mention a favorite flimsy and obvious straw man: the argument that mutation doesn't introduce "new genetic information" therefore the theory of evolution makes no sense (it turns out this requires you either ignore things like gene duplication and polyploidy, or make up your own very irrelevant definition of "information").

I laughed quietly to myself when I first read this next sign...

Despite the appearance that the sign may help clear up any lingering confusion about natural selection and evolution, it seems to instead dwell on the notion that natural selection is an insufficient mechanism for all of evolution. This, while true, is inconsequential and in this context quite misleading. 

On a side note, check out the rate of branching after the flood in that "Creation Orchard" figure (bottom right in the figure above), which some have called "super evolution" due to the wickedly high mutation rates needed for such rapid diversification:

The next few signs/dioramas illustrate a couple of cherry-picked examples presented as evidence that "mutation = loss of information" despite plenty of real evidence that various types of genetic mutation do indeed provide the extra genetic information needed evolution.  I'll leave it to you to ponder all the errors in the signs and read them without my interrupting.

(Closer look at the text in the above panel.)

Continuing on, there are more of these long-debunked creationist arguments against evolution. In particular, the infamously nebulous term "kind" which here seems to be something like the most recent common ancestors of (or all of?) a taxonomic family?  Again, having conceded that microevolution does happen, the belief that all of the "kinds" share no natural ancestry requires some effort to try and rationalize away all the evidence to the contrary.

If all this talk of evidence and arguments just doesn't appeal to you, fear not!  The ministry concludes wearing it's true colors: all you need to do is hang on to an unwavering belief in their particular version of Christianity, and the world will once again make complete sense.

PS:  If you're into knowing the source of your information (or just like sending thank you cards)...

Darwin Day in Columbus Ohio?

I'm in Columbus, OH this week, where sadly there isn't much being advertised in celebration of Darwin Day this Friday.  That said, there are a few interesting events taking place later this week:

 

Kids Explain Evolution: The Charlie's Playhouse Compilation

A while ago, some of you may have seen requests for parents to share some video of their kids answering the question "What's Evolution?" The result is the video version of the Ask the Kids! project at Charlie's Playhouse which is now available on the web (including right down below...)

On the Origin of Species turns 150

I'm sitting here in an airport Starbuck's somewhere in the midwest, and thought I'd try and crank out a quick blog post while I was killing time. So given today is the 150th anniversary of Darwin's first edition of On the Origin of Species, here are a few odds and ends that caught my eye:

• A cool graphical representation of the book's evolution from the first to the final (sixth) edition.
  
• Video from the recent UCLA visit by Ray "Banana Man" Comfort & Kirk "Master Debator" Cameron
• Panda's Thumb says Happy Birthday to the Origin 
• There's a lot of media coverage about how the book is still controversial (which says a lot more about people than the book), and unfortunately
  
• Some media outlets are picking up creationist crap (though read the comments).
  
• http://www.Darwin150.com is also on facebook.
• Other happenings from around the world.
  

NSF launches Evolution of Evolution website

The National Science Foundation has launched a new website called the Evolution of Evolution: 150 Years of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. A cursory look at the site revealed a nice (though a bit overpackaged) presentation at how the theory of Evolution has pulled together a broad array of scientific disciplines, and expounds upon a few cool, important or otherwise noteworthy examples of the recent scientific accomplishments as well as significant historical work.  Also a bit of history surrounding Darwin and his legacy - no doubt in celebration of his 200th birthday this year, and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species this Tuesday, the 24th of November.

If you get a chance to work through any of the site in detail, feel free to leave your impression in the comments below.

Schooling Comfort and Cameron on Darwin, Hitler

You may recall hearing that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron have published a special version of Darwin's Origin of Species which they intend to use to evangelize to college students (not the science majors, apparently). I'm of course hoping that if you see them on your nearest campus, you'll snag me a copy!

I previously mentioned a few brief comments on their wacky introduction, and thought a nice addition would be this critique of some of the other claims made by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron regarding the now infamous "50 pages of libelous lies" introduction they've slipped into Darwin's book.

Note that you can get Darwin's Origin of Species for free these days (at least online).  Here's one example of the complete text of the 6th edition (with audio).

The Mathematics of Darwin's Legacy

There's a short post over at the Origins blog at sciencemag.org that mentions a conference that had escaped my notice until now - looks like it could be pretty interesting.

Any mathematical biologists that do work with evolutionary models might have some Thanksgiving plans to reconsider (like say, celebrating in Portugal during the "Mathematics of Darwin's Legacy" conference) ?

Ray Comfort & Kirk Cameron get spanked

[Hat tip to PZ Myers]

Free Origin of Species on November 19th!

Well, "free" so long as you don't mind that fundamentalist Christian introduction (which I've mentioned previously). In that introduction, the notoriously science illiterate Ray Comfort tries to demonizes Darwin and makes the usual creationist blunders in an attempt to topple the theory of evolution and promote his version of creationism. Yes, that's right - Ray and his side kick Kirk Cameron are rallying the troops to evangelize on 50 college campuses (hopefully mine!) with free copies of the Origin of Species. I really hope someone follows them around and tapes the responses they get!

Here's the details straight from the horse's mouth:



If anyone can grab an extra one (or ten), I'd love a copy!!!

Ray Comfort's introduction can be read at either of:

http://assets.livingwaters.com/pdf/OriginofSpecies.pdf

http://c0122981.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/090917BananaManIntro.pdf (RichardDawkins.net)

[Hat tip to PZ Myers, R. Dawkins]

Rachel Maddow on the too-hot-for-the-U.S. movie, "Creation"

[Hat tip to Hemant Mehta]

I love Rachel's comment after the clip:

"Don't you worry about - in the long run - what happens to a country that starts disbelieving all the stuff that has been proven?"

Happy Darwin Day! PS: Most Americans don't believe in evolution...

At least this seems to be the case, according to findings from a recent Gallup poll entitled On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution.

In Gallup's usual good form, the poll also included questions to uncover what major factors contributed to whether or not participants believe in the theory of evolution. The results? Well, they weren't all that surprising in retrospect: religious beliefs and level of education correlated well with whether or not participants believed in evolution, and whether or not they could associate the theory of evolution with Darwin. Interestingly, there is a short video from Gallup News from June 2007 giving the results of a similar poll showing Americans were split closer to 50-50 a couple of years ago.

For more details, check out the article - it includes informative data summaries and a more detailed discussion of the poll results. You can also find other related polls on the site, including One-Third of Americans Believe the Bible is Literally True, May 25, 2007, and Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design.

Darwin Days @ Cornell: Dr. Massimo Pigliucci

This week, many people across the globe are celebrating Charles Darwin's 200th birthday (this Thursday the 12th), and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species. Cornell University and the Museum of the Earth have put together a fantastic lineup of lectures and events and a website with all the details which can be found here.

This evening, and yesterday afternoon during the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology weekly seminar, I had the great pleasure of listening to Dr. Massimo Pigliucci. I won't go into great detail, but the bulk of his second talk "What's science got to do with it? When scientists talk nonsense about religion" was a gem to listen to, and touched on a many interesting issues central to the conflict between religion and science.

I would strongly encourage you to check out his website and blog, where you can find some of his writing, publications, lecture slides, and mention of some of his books on science, evolution, and philosophy.

Here is a short list of points that caught my attention during his talk, here written in my words and not his. These mostly related to evolution and creationism/intelligent design, but touch on aspects of general science as well:

• When talking with someone (in his case, usually students) who is conflicted between their religious beliefs and learning about evolution, he gives these following words of advice: I won't ask you to believe it, I simply ask that you understand it.
  
• Quoting Richard Feynman (the physicist) from The Meaning Of It All: Thoughts Of A Citizen-scientist, he reiterated that the root of much conflict between religion and science comes from the notion that (to use another Feynman quote) "Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt. "
  
• The conflict between evolutionary theory and creationism/intelligent design is not a scientific conflict, but a sociological and philosophical one. Science can only prove or disprove assertions about the natural world and is limited (if not unable) to prove or disprove assertions of a supernatural nature.
• That said, when religions make claims about the natural world (e.g. the earth 10,000 years old) a scientific approach can be used to evaluate them.
• Scientists would do well to learn about and apply the philosophy of science in their pursuits! Understanding the strengths and limitations of science can (of course) make for better science. I particularly enjoyed his commentary on statistics, which can be found on his website.
• Waiting until high school or college to teach basic science and critical reasoning is a no-no! This should be taught from early on, just like we teach reading, writing and mathematics.
  

My time is up for now, but I hope you get a chance to check out some of Massimo's work as well as any of the "Darwin Day" events that might be going on in your neck of the woods. That's all for now! :)